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"It was Cherie who really told him to go for it against Brown," a friend of the Blairs said yesterday. "She put the steel in him and it all goes back to that."

More recently, it has been Mrs Blair, who has pushed her husband to stay on as Prime Minister and see out 10 years in the post – however loud the clamour has been from next door.

Last year she infuriated the Brown camp by saying it was a "long way in the future" before she, her husband and the children would vacate No 10.

Friends say that since the recent fracas over the succession she is even more strongly of the view that they should remain as long as possible to allow an alternative to Mr Brown to emerge.

This year she sent another message to Mr Brown via the media. "I think being in No 10 is such a privilege – there are many fantastic things about it," she said in an interview. "And so I enjoy it, I have to say. And I haven't really thought about what the future is going to be like."rachel sylvester